Monday, January 27, 2014

Your Car May Have a Serious Problem The Manufacturer Won’t Tell You About

Last night I received an email from a reader of this column
asking my advice about her 2003 Toyota Camry. She has owned and driven this car
since she bought it new more than 10 years ago. She takes very good care of her
cars and her Camry performed flawlessly. She has had her cars serviced
regularly by an independent mechanic for 15 years who she knows and trusts. A
short time ago, while her husband was driving this car the starter
malfunctioned, the a/c quit, the car overheated, and the needle was buried in
the hot range. This all happened at the exact same time. She took the car
to her independent mechanic and he and he replaced a cooling fan in the a/c,
gave her a new ignition coil, and also did something with the radiator since
all the coolant was gone from it. The bill was almost $1,200.00.

Well, you may have already guessed what comes next. When her
husband picked the car up from the mechanic, he only drove 10 to 15 mile and
the car quit again, doing all the exact same things. He managed to get it
back to the mechanic who also was completely baffled by what happened. At his
point, her mechanic did what he should have done before he made the previous
repair. That is to check with the manufacturer of that make car through the
Internet or a local dealer. When he did check, he found that there was
something called a “Technical Service Bulletin” issued on this year and model
Toyota Camry, TSB SB-0015-11 which exactly describes the conditions that
occurred with the car, and the recommended fix.

Obviously, the woman who emailed me wanted to know why
Toyota had not advised all owners of the year and model of this Technical
Service Bulletin. If she had known, she could have taken precautionary measures
when the described symptoms occurred or even taken it to her mechanic or a
Toyota dealer for an inspection. Now she’s wasted $1,200 and is faced with
replacing her engine. Of course, this makes no economic sense on an 11 year old
vehicle.

Technical Service Bulletins, TSB’s, are sent only to dealers
of the manufacturer of that make car, not to independent service departments or
mechanics. They are not made public and not shared with owners of the model the
TSB is issued on. One might ask, what’s the difference between a TSB and a
“recall”? The manufacturers take the position that recalls are for widespread
problems with a particular model or a safety issue. For this particular TSB, my
Toyota representative said he had experienced only two occurrences. But this is
only for his territory in part of South Florida. He doesn’t know how many
problems have occurred worldwide. As far as safety issues are concerned, in my
opinion, that’s a matter of opinion. Is it a safety issue if your engine blows
up while you’re driving 75 mph on the turnpike in heavy traffic? Some would say,
yes.

In my opinion, owners of models affected by TSB’s should be
notified as a precautionary measure even if only a few cars of that model are
affected. I think there are three reasons manufacturers don’t do this. First,
no manufacturer likes to tell people when they’re having problems with a car
they manufactured. As you know, sometimes manufacturer’s wait so long to notify
their customers of product defects that the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, NHTSA, has to order them to do so. The second reason is that if
they told the owners of that model of a particular problem, the owner might
bring her car into a dealer and have the problem fixed under warranty. Whereas,
if the car fails at a later date and is out of warranty, it costs the manufacturer
nothing. The third reason is that manufacturers are very concerned about
dealers who will use any excuse to repair a car. They’re afraid that the dealer
will take advantage of the manufacturer or the customer (depending whether the
car is under warranty or not) and do work on the car that isn’t needed. This is
only my opinion and all manufacturers will vehemently deny this.

My advice is to check with the car dealer that services your
make of car and ask him if there are any Technical Service Bulletins issued on
the model and year you own. You should be sure that your dealer does a thorough
check. Dealers often overlook TSB’s because there are so many of them and such
a small percent of models and years under the TSB actually have a problem that
materializes. You can also check directly with the manufacturer for this
information and even find it on the Internet. Googling the symptoms your car is
experiencing and your car’s year, make and model brings up lots of good
information including TSB’s. Your problem with getting information on the
Internet is not getting enough; it’s getting too much. I Googled TSB’s on 2003
Toyota Camrys and came up with 58 TSB’s, including TSB SB-0015-11.

I suppose some car owners might agree with the
manufacturer’s philosophy and not want to be worried about TSB’s. If the
chances are small that your specific year, make and model will have that
problem, why worry about it? This is why people are divided over whether
genetic testing for inherited diseases is a good thing. Speaking for myself, I
would always rather be warned about a potential problem even if it probably
won’t materialize.

3 comments:

I've never even heard of Technical Service Bulletins until now. Researching whether one was issued for one's vehicle can prevent expensive repairs which may be unnecessary. It is a good thing that the mechanic caught it the second time around.

I'm very sorry that you had a bad experience with your Highlander that could have been avoided had the manufacturer contacted you. Hopefully, our legislators one day will require transparency with all mechanical problems know of by the manufacturer...not just those as prevalent as to require national recalls. .

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